Posts Tagged ‘ground stealth’

Word “stealth” has lately become a catchword used to define the weapon – mostly aircraft – as “superior”, with little or no thought as to what the term actually means. Stealth fighters, stealth bombers, stealth ships… even stealth tanks, the craze is in full swing. But how much do these weapons deserve the label? What is stealth? Is merely having low radar cross section enough – as commonly held – to define the weapon as “stealth”? Is USAF stuck on denial that no military advantage lasts forever, or even on denial that it never understood the true meaning of stealth? Every successful use of stealth aircraft had seen them acting as a support of, and being supported by, an array of nonstealthy aircraft – AWACS, standoff jammers etc. Yet USAF is now aiming for an all-stealth tactical fighter force, even though it will make the force less flexible and arguably less capable as well. How stealthy these aircraft really are, and what are their vulnerabilities? Read the rest of this entry »